MEQ: Why Jonathan Pollard Got Life - The Victim Impact Statement

David Zwiebel - Middle East Quarterly - June 13, 1997

Introduction and Commentary by David Zwiebel
The Federal government's "Victim Impact Statement" in the criminal proceeding against Jonathan J. Pollard, published here for the first time, is significant both for what it says and for where it fits in the larger picture of the government's case against Pollard.

Pollard, it will be recalled, was an intelligence research specialist with the U.S. Navy who received a life sentence in March 1987 after being convicted of spying for Israel. Efforts over the past decade to reduce his sentence and withdraw his plea have been rejected,1 as have his requests to the president for commutation of sentence and clemency. As a result, he continues to languish in Federal prison.

Life imprisonment is apparently the harshest punishment ever meted out to someone found guilty of spying during peace time. Indeed, since the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953, during the Korean War, no spy has received a harsher sentence, even during war time. The severity of Pollard's sentence is in itself noteworthy.